What I really like about Promising Younger Ladies and likewise this movie is its darkish, twisted high quality. Typically, you are in comparison with male administrators and artists who shared these qualities, like Bret Easton Ellis and Roald Dahl – I do know that you simply personally determine with Alfred Hitchcock as effectively. What do you assume {that a} extra feminine perspective has to supply to those darker narratives?
That is so attention-grabbing, as I consider the Gothic as truly being an inherently feminine factor, just like the Bronte sisters and Hilary Mantel and Patricia Highsmith [author of The Talented Mr Ripley book]. I feel there is a darkish, particularly feminine factor as effectively. As a result of if you’re writing about intercourse and energy, these issues are skilled in a different way should you’re a girl. The writers and filmmakers that I really like probably the most have a tendency to put in writing or make issues which can be very, very darkish, however in a really lovely manner. Sofia Coppola is a good instance of the fashionable American Gothic. There is no one darker, however every thing she makes is so tactile, lovely and alluring that the darkness is sort of a knife wrapped in satin. The ladies that I like are working in these tremendous darkish locations.
What about violence? I personally discover it troublesome to see a whole lot of blood and gore on display screen, however in Saltburn, though there’s violence, there is a restrained, suave high quality about it. What would you say your boundaries are with portraying onscreen violence?
I haven’t got any boundaries, I do not assume. In terms of something, it is all the time about what your function is. It is by no means concerning the factor itself, slightly, what is the function of doing this factor or exhibiting this factor. In Promising Younger Girl, the terrible factor that occurred to Nina isn’t proven, it is solely heard. And I feel it is so devastating. I’d by no means wish to present one thing like that. And it could by no means have felt proper. However then typically it’s a necessity to see the violence, in the identical manner nudity can be utilized in mandatory methods and pointless methods. It is all the time why, slightly than what. It is ‘Why is that this going to be the easiest way of exhibiting this sense?’ I personally do not assume that there needs to be something that is off bounds. It is nearly whether or not it is justifiable. It is concerning the function of this movie, no matter it’s. As an example, in Saltburn, there’s Barry Keoghan’s nude dance to Homicide on the Dancefloor, which I labored on with an incredible editor, Victoria Boydell. It is one thing so joyful, post-coital, euphoric and camp – all the issues that track is. I do not thoughts feeling uncomfortable or slightly I do thoughts it, however I am taken with it. I do not thoughts making someone deeply uncomfortable. That is a exposing factor.